


Why Ianto Hates First Days

by Rocky_Oberlin



Series: Guardian Ianto series [2]
Category: Torchwood
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-16
Updated: 2013-05-16
Packaged: 2017-12-12 01:51:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/805755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rocky_Oberlin/pseuds/Rocky_Oberlin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Team Torchwood really need to understand the complexities of NOT throwing instruments around meteors. Ianto really needs to teach them that after he gets rid of his headache. Gwen Bruising. Part of the Guardian series</p>
            </blockquote>





	Why Ianto Hates First Days

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place during Torchwood Season 1 "The First Day". Again Gwen does not figure very well in this.
> 
> August 19, 2014: Edit on the names of Ianto's three brothers. Other than that, nothing else.

Ianto was right about the headache that getting Gwen set up in Torchwood was going to give him. It throbbed right behind his eyes and felt like someone was poking icepicks into the inner corners of his eyes. And she still hadn’t read the policies or protocols, he bet. In fact Ianto was willing to bet with his CSI brother in Las Vegas about her not even knowing the basic tenants of Torchwood as he originally wrote them for Queen Victoria and then the rewritten set after Torchwood One fell. Ianto would probably walk away with a nice amount if he could talk Nick into it. Of course, Nick could call it a sucker bet and Ianto would be out of getting the money Nick owed him back. Ah, well, it was a nice thought.

Ianto was hoping for a nice night to settle his stomach and his head. His sister had sent over some mint for tea and said that it worked wonders on her headaches. She also recommended ginger for the sick feeling in his stomach. He was just going to start boiling the water when he felt the beginning of a disturbance in the wind as something fell through the atmosphere and started to direct itself toward Cardiff. A look out his window showed that a meteor was well on its way down and for all intents and purposes it looked like a crashing plane. Ianto sighed. There went his tea; they were going to need him to start the cover up. Ianto’s phone started buzzing and the ID showed it was the Captain. Joy.

Ianto figured that he was able to do his job better if he were at the scene instead of looking at a bunch of monitors. When he breezed himself into the stand of trees nearby, he was treated to the whole team throwing instruments at each other. If this girl had any brains in her head, Ianto would have thought that she knew that she should never throw equipment at people or objects; especially the pointy kind (even if he did fantasize about throwing a knife at Owen when he became unbearable). Ianto planned on having a couple of chats; one with the team about proper instrument usage and collection and one to the Cardiff police about what they teach their officers about crime scene etiquette. This was deplorable. The buzzing of his phone almost made him miss the purple smoke that came streaming out of the meteor. It did keep him from seeing where it went as he had to hurry back to the Hub to field a complaint about Torchwood again; this time from the military. Ianto’s stomach was not feeling any better after this episode.

Two phone calls later had Ianto giving the aggravating team the news that their escaped gas was in a club and had managed to kill someone. Ianto didn’t know what was worse, the constant apologizing from the new girl or the lack of acceptance on the rest of the team’s part for their hand in this fiasco. And Ianto still wanted to talk to the constabulary about their procedures since this girl should have at least known them. He figured that he would do that in the morning while everyone else was doing their reports. 

Ianto wondered how anyone of them even found a paper bag let alone anything in it when they were talking about trying to find the girl that was possessed by the purple gas. Were they not able to use their eyes to look at pictures of the people from driving records or the National Health system? She had to be registered someplace with an ID, but it was good luck to find her in the first place that quickly. Then they had to go get the young lady and again he was left to look at the monitors.

“Ianto, help put our guest in the cells and take care of lunch,” yelled out Captain Harkness. Ianto guessed from his dulcet tones that someone pissed him off again. The mulish look from Owen gave Ianto the culprit of the mood for their captain.

“Yes, sir.” Ianto figured that it was just easier to let him settle down and help Gwen with the young lady, Carys. And remember to breathe through your mouth, Ianto, he thought to himself. He watched the video enough to see that she was able to pull him in on more than a come hither look. His suspicions were confirmed at the first breath he got from her vicinity. 

“Does anyone know how she enticed the young man from last night?” Ianto asked Gwen as they walked the girl down to the cells.

Gwen just gave him a confused look and didn’t answer. The girl was too busy crying to say anything, but Ianto had the feeling that something else was also aware of his question. He could see it in the slight changes of her face before she went back to the traumatized young girl. This would bear watching. Gwen lead the girl into the cell and pretty much dismissed Ianto to his own devices. Ianto could smell the increase of pheromones coming off the girl, so he retreated quickly to see about their lunch. And that talk with the police about what they taught their officers about crime scenes.

Ianto was directed to a young blond constable by the name of Andy for his questions about what Gwen knew about police procedure at crime scenes. The constable looked up and asked, “Can I help you?”

“I’m from Torchwood,” started Ianto. He could see that the young man had run into Torchwood before by the scowl on his face and the tightening of his shoulders. Ianto figured the experience had left a bad taste in his mouth.

“Come to patronize me some more for your new buddy, Gwen?” Andy spat out.

Ianto looked puzzled. Something must have happened while he was stuck in the Hub. “No, I came to see what procedures Gwen knew from her time in the police. She seems to have either not learned or she forgot them at the crash scene last night.” Ianto hoped that this would help him calm down a bit. It looked like it might have.

Andy raised an eyebrow. “What has Herself done this time?”

Ianto raised an echoing eyebrow. “I tell you mine and you tell me yours?”

“All right, deal. Let’s hear it.”

“She decided that because the others were fooling around with our equipment, that she could do the same. She threw a chisel to one of our operatives and instead damaged the meteor that we were investigating. I want to know if she even learned proper procedure on handling equipment, let alone evidence from a crime scene.”

“Ah, got into trouble with the boss, did she?”

Ianto gave a disgusted look. “Not really. Just with me, since I have to remind her of what we should be doing and not what they were doing.”

“Yeah, I taught her, but I don’t know if she even listened. I’ve had so many complaints about her attitude at the crime scenes that we had been assigned to the police line to keep the looky-lous out. I think that cases were almost lost because of what she had been seen doing with the evidence. I tried to tell her, but she was a stubborn one.” Andy found Ianto nodded his head in commiseration. It seemed that he knew exactly where he was coming from. “As for my run in with Special-Ops Gwen, I was on guard for the club death last night and she pretty much brushed me off with a vague and condescending remark. She gets into Special-Ops and now she’s too good for the likes of me.”

Ianto had an idea about this particular constable. “Have you run across any other strange instances while you are on patrol?”

“Yeah,” Andy drew out. He gave Ianto a hard look. “Why?”

Ianto pulled out a plain business card with his name and number on it. “If anything else strange happens, give me a call. I have to clean up after the Captain and the rest of Torchwood, so I can probably help you a bit more than Gwen could. I’ve been doing this longer.”

“Am I going to get into trouble if I do this?”

Ianto shook his head. “No. If anything, I will. But I have the feeling that you see more than you let on and are keeping very quiet about it. I like discretion and I find it important in my line of work. I help you and you help me. Deal?”

Andy gave the card a long look. “Deal.” He took the card from Ianto.

Ianto gave Andy a nod of his head and a hand shake. That was one problem off his list and it added many more. It seems that Torchwood Gwen was going to be as much trouble for Ianto as Constable Gwen was for her partner. Well, Ianto hadn’t had a challenge in a couple of decades. He would have to see just who could out stubborn whom. And he had a lot of patience; he had to with his crazy family.

Ianto knew a test when he saw one during their meal. The Captain had to leave and that allowed the rest of his employees to grill the new girl and see what any of them knew. He decided to play along with the act to see just what came of it. The fact that it was interrupted by Carys crying in the cells was a bucket of cold water on he plans. But it did draw out what Gwen thought of her co-workers and Ianto was not impressed. He was even more not impressed when the Captain allowed her to use up a ream of paper and an ink cartridge printing up her idea of a profile on Carys. Really, what did discussions about Heath Ledger and Orlando Bloom have to do with who this girl was and what she believed in? Ianto could look at her soul and tell you more about her than that silly profile about her swimming badges. Heck, Ianto could call G, Ryan, and Spencer to read her mind and they could tell you more than what was on Gwen’s pieces of papers. And there was the possibility of identity theft, if Ianto didn’t take care of that mess properly later. All in all, Ianto was despairing of any good coming from Gwen. He just wished that the Captain would see that too.

Ianto didn’t know that Owen was missing or that Carys escaped because he wasn’t in the Hub at that time. He was busy with making the cover seem legitimate again after it had been ignored for too long. Too bad he didn’t think that anyone believed they really were a tourism office, but his info was good for the tourists that were looking for the out of the way places that were not covered by the Tourism Board. Considering what he knew of the area before the development, he could write a book about the old Cardiff and the theater where Charles Dickens recited his famous “The Christmas Carol” before his death. Ianto did think that it was prudent to not include the site of the funeral parlor that had been haunted by “ghosts”. Then he was surprised out of his boredom by the secret door opening and their guest escaping.

Ianto tried for the harmless look, but Carys was too panicked to read his body language. She was holding something that the Captain felt was really important as a hostage and Ianto couldn’t really try anything against her unless he was allowed by the Captain. He must not have thought Ianto could have done anything because Carys got away and the hand needed a new jar. Oh, and the help was furious with Captain Jack for allowing her to get away. It was a good thing they didn’t even give two thoughts about him; may be being invisible was a good thing right now.

Ianto shut down the office to help with the search for Carys. He rolled his eyes when Gwen was asked about her pet project and she came up blank. Even Ianto knew that a jilted woman would visit her ex-boyfriend. They even knew who he was because they had her phone message. It was a good thing that Tosh was a smart woman; Ianto feared for the male population if Gwen were to be depended on.

And they were too late for the idiot. Ianto really didn’t feel too sorry for the guy, if his profile was anything to go on. He smirked to himself about the profile he built without using up paper and he was able to make up a decent cover for his death. May be he should have Gwen help him in that department. It might help her realize that they were not the police or under certain morals that she holds near and dear for others not herself.

“Ianto, we are going to need a lot of bodies,” called the Captain after a very anxious few hours.

“How many this time, sir?”

“I’ll give you the specifics when we get back. Oh, and I’ll need you to file the portable prison when we get back. The juice is all used up, but we did save Carys.”

“Good to hear, sir. I’ll prep the autopsy bay for Owen to give her a physical.” Ianto rolled his eyes as he went to the pit they called the autopsy bay. It needed a cleaning more than a prepping. Carys wouldn’t remember them, but he still was fastidious about appearances while they lasted. Besides, she may even overcome the Retcon like Gwen did. Hopefully she would just get psychiatric help instead of becoming a member of Torchwood. Ianto was getting sick of the self-deluded ones already. Tosh and Owen were fine because they were just deluded about parts of their lives. Gwen was deluded about her whole outlook on life and where she comes into play.

When the team came back, Ianto met the Captain in his office to take the portable prison down to the Archives. “Did we do the right thing?” asked the Captain.

“Sir?”

“Letting Carys run around Cardiff while we tried to find her. Should I have let her destroy the hand just so I could keep her here?”

Ianto inhaled slowly. “Are you asking as the Captain or as a man trying to impress a new love interest who questions your decisions?”

Captain Jack looked up sharply at that question, his face darkening. “I have no feelings for Gwen. I think that she will bring a human outlook that we are missing.”

Ianto blanked his face. “As you say sir. If you will excuse me, I will archive this before someone else takes it out of the Hub.”

Captain Jack gave a lecherous smirk. “You do know I have a name.”

“And you made it abundantly clear that I don’t have the right to use it.”

The Captain cocked his head in puzzlement while he studied his employee. “In what way?”

“You never told me I could use it. You introduced yourself as Captain Harkness when we first met at Torchwood One. Later, when you deigned to hire me, you never gave any indication that I could call you anything other than Captain.”

“Well, you can call me Jack,” he said in flirty tone. 

Ianto just looked at him blankly. “We’ll see.” Then he turned and left the office. “The Captain doth protest too much,” Ianto muttered under his breath. Captain Jack had Gwen here for a reason other than her “human outlook”. A look in the Archives showed that many other Torchwood employees had a human outlook, but sometimes they had to hide it for the good of the country and the world. After all, Ianto knew some of them and had taught most of them himself.

Ianto stopped his progress down to the Archives and returned to Jack Harkness’ office. The hopeful look was quelled when Ianto simple said, “I think we need to have an in-service over the proper use of our equipment when at the discovery sites. I feel this would not have happened if everyone was using proper decorum when they were getting samples.” Ianto turned in an about face and left Captain Jack Harkness with a horrified look on his face as he contemplated the possible in-service they were going to get.


End file.
